


The Book of Love

by Andramion



Series: ask meme fic(let)s / tumblr prompts / drabbles [7]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Librarian AU but a little different, M/M, in which oikawa has been up for over 48 hours just to win a bet against iwachan, kuroo is mentioned but he's not really in it, same goes for sugawara, you all know he would
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6592918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andramion/pseuds/Andramion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, what’s the thickest book you have around here?”</p><p>-</p><p>In which Koutarou is pulled into an ongoing series of bets between Oikawa and Iwaizumi, Oikawa will be close to death's door if he doesn't sleep sometime soon and Koutarou tries his best to fill Oikawa's seemingly random requests.</p><p>Livetweet fic. @andramion</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dicaeopolis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicaeopolis/gifts).



> This is just a whole lot of silly that I wrote live on twitter.  
> I got pulled into BokuOi hell and well, let's say I'm happy to burn.
> 
> Please forgive me my corny song title.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy reading it!

“Hey, what’s the thickest book you have around here?”

Koutarou looks up from his homework – or rather, the notepad filled with more scribbles than actual words – to see someone leaning on the counter of the library help desk.

Glad to have an excuse to _not_ be silent, he pushes his desk chair back and gets up, stretching his leg when he stops at the counter.

“Ah, can I help you?” he asks the guy who is still sprawled out over the dark wood, now looking up at Koutarou. One of his eyes is covered by the fringe hanging down into his face, like he hadn’t had the time to put it up. Koutarou resists the urge to run his own hands though his hair to see if it’s still standing up.

“The thickest book you have,” he says, and he sounds like Kuroo on the morning before finals. Koutarou immediately feels a weird mix of worry and pity for him.

“Uh,” Koutarou starts. His hand finds its way to the back of his neck, rubbing his skin. “I’m actually.. not really sure what you mean?”

He’s a little stunned by the request, unsure of what he should do. He knows how to look up a title in the system, how to find books by author, or faculty even, but this request definitely isn’t on the list of things Kuroo hastily explained to him before rushing off.

For a moment, he looks around to see if there is anybody else around. Surely, one of the regular library attendants should be able to help out better than he can.

A heavy sigh comes from the counter as the student buries his face in his arms.

“I just need.. a really thick book.” His voice is slightly muffled and Koutarou makes a mental note to tell Kuroo about the guy that came asking for something really perverted while Kuroo was out, but he stops himself from actually laughing at him.

“What kind of book though?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t slept in two days, please, just give me an encyclopaedia or something like that.”

Koutarou perks up at that. That’s definitely something he can do.

“Just a moment,” he says as he pulls up the library system on the desktop next to him. His fingers hesitate over the keyboard, though.

“Uh,” he starts again, and now he’s not even sure the guy’s even listening anymore, with the way he’s got his eyes closed and head pillowed on his arms. Can people even sleep standing up? “What kind of information do you need? We have encyclopaedia on animals, plants and uhm, probably a lot more things? I think.”

Koutarou watches him lift his head at that.

“I really don’t care. Just pick one.”

That grates on Koutarou’s nerves. He’s trying, he really is, to fill in for Kuroo as best as he can, but he can’t work miracles without any information, right? Who asks for a book without even knowing what they need? Maybe the guy’s just fucking with him, Kuroo did say one of the other workers liked to prank the new guys.

He considers just telling him to come back when he’s got at least a vague idea of what he requires – he should at least be polite about it, he doesn’t want to get Kuroo in trouble after agreeing to take on his shift.

When he takes another look at the guy’s face, he changes his mind, though.

He _does_ look tired, bags under his eyes. He’s wearing a ratty old sweater too. Not that Koutarou would find that so strange – there are plenty of students who wear their comfy home clothes out for a quick run to the cafeteria where Koutarou normally works, so why would it be any different for the library?

But despite the worn clothes and exhausted features, he looks like the kind of guy who would normally pay some more attention to himself, even though Koutarou can’t really figure out why he thinks so. Maybe he’s seen him at the cafeteria before.

“Hey, are you.. okay?” he asks him, softly patting him on the shoulder until he gets a reaction. After four pats and a squeeze, the guy suddenly stands up straight and looks around, a little bewildered. Koutarou bites his lip for a moment before he repeats his question.

“Ah, yeah, just.. really tired.” He yawns in the middle of his sentence, but even though he apologises, Koutarou finds it rather.. adorable.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Koutarou steps through the little swing door that separates his side of the counter from the rest of the library. He puts one hand on the guy’s shoulder and grins at him. “Why don’t I go look for that book of yours, and you can sit down in my chair and relax for a bit.”

“Ah, you sure that’s okay?” He’s looking at Koutarou with such hope in his eyes that Koutarou can’t help but nod immediately. He’s not actually sure it’s allowed, but well, it’s not like they can expect someone who’s just filling in to know all the rules, right?

So instead of being completely truthful about it, he just tells the guy “sure, sure” and nudges him in the direction of the swing door.

He’s surprised at the string of curses the guy lets out when he bumps into the corner of the counter, though. He’s not sure he’s ever heard such colourful language anywhere other than on TV. There’s a mutter of “Iwa-chan, your potty mouth is rubbing off on me” before Koutarou is faced with an angelic smile and another apology.

“It’s fine, fine,” he tells him and he pushes the guy down onto the desk chair, stumbling forward a bit when the chair rolls back. “OK so just wait here and I’ll go look for a… thick book.. for you… what’s your name?”

He lets out a small ‘oh’ before he starts feeling his pockets, before slipping his hand into his sweater’s pocket and pulling out a student ID. Koutarou sticks his hand out to take it from him, but instead of just passing the card, the guy puts his entire hand in Koutarou’s and leaves it there for a moment.

Confused as to why they’re suddenly holding hands, Koutarou just stares at him for a bit before clearing his throat and telling him “I’ve got it.”

The other’s hand slips from his as though nothing really happened and Koutarou breathes in a bit more heavily than is really necessary, but he regains his train of thought and walks around the chair to push it closer to the desk.

“Okay, just wait here,” he says, but he’s not sure whether Oikawa Tooru heard him anymore.

* * *

When Koutarou comes back – after walking through the isles for about half an hour, stacking several heavy, thick books into his right arm and flexing his free arm at Sugawara’s raised eyebrow not once, but twice – he returns to the sight of Oikawa sprawled out across the desk, much like the way he was leaning over the counter before.

He sets the stack of books down before he walks over to Oikawa, watching as Oikawa’s breath lifts his hair away from his face every few seconds. Oikawa is using Koutarou’s backpack as a pillow, sleeping so soundly Koutarou feels bad about having to wake him up already.

Still, if Koutarou has managed to get the right book for him, Oikawa could go home and sleep there, so it should be fine.

Koutarou gently nudges Oikawa’s shoulder until Oikawa lets out a low groan and waves his hand in the general direction of Koutarou’s.

"Stoppit," Oikawa mumbles, and Koutarou assumes the wave was listless version of slapping Koutarou's hand. "Five more minutes, Iwa-chan."

Koutarou shakes him a little harder, feeling a little sorry for the Iwa-chan that was apparently often in charge of waking Oikawa up while cursing like a sailor. Or well, those two things didn't _have_  to happen simultaneously, but Koutarou doesn't know the guy and it's more fun to imagine it this way.

"Hey, Oikawa, wake up, I've got your books for you, you've gotta tell me which one you want to borrow."

Oikawa opens one eye and squints, and Koutarou squats down so Oikawa doesn't have to look into the fluorescent lights overhead to see him.

"You're not Iwa-chan," Oikawa states and Koutarou huffs our a laugh at that.

"No I'm not," he answers, even though it wasn't a question. He tries not to give in to the way his hands want to slide into Oikawa's hair and brush it aside.

"Beefy like him, though," Oikawa adds as he sits up and stretches his back, arms raised in the air and yawning.

"Thank you." Koutarou figures it's a compliment until Oikawa quirks an eyebrow at him and Koutarou sees the corners of his mouth turn up a little.

"Cute too," Oikawa says as he turns his chair so his body's facing Koutarou, and Koutarou doesn't really know how to react to that. He's sure it's a compliment this time, though, so he grins at Oikawa, in all his old training gear glory, and tells him: "You too."

He's not entirely sure why hadn't expected the "I know" that Oikawa follows up with.

"So, what do you have for me?" Glad to have a direction again, something pointing him towards what to do, he wiggles his eyebrows at Oikawa and fights to keep his smile from getting any bigger.

"I think I'll have done you proud," he says as he turns around to pick up the few volumes of the encyclopaedia of nature and move them aside to show Oikawa the real treasure he found.

Oikawa's eyes grow big when Koutarou turns towards him again, a book nearly as thick as Koutarou's forearm is long in his hands.

"How on earth?" Oikawa ask him, hands reaching for the monstrosity and skimming his fingertips over the spine.

"A complete collection of Agatha Cristie's Miss Marple stories," Koutarou tells him proudly, and then he reads from the notepad on top of it, his own handwriting a little hard to read because of how quickly he'd written the information down. "Sixty-eight crimes, twenty-two false accusations, forty-three murders of which six strangulations and twelve poisonings. Four thousand and thirty-two pages in total. Will that do?"

"So you got me not just a thick book, but.. murder mysteries?" Oikawa is still staring at the book, lifting and putting the cover back down. It looks like he's temporarily forgotten about his exhaustion, or maybe that nap really did him well, Koutarou isn't sure, but he _is_  sure that the way Oikawa looks up at him now - like Koutarou is his personal saviour, eyes sparkly and a big and genuine smile on his face - is the reason that Koutarou's stomach seems to flip and his palms start feeling clammy around the book's pages.

"Haaaah, I've been looking for something like this for _ages_ ," Oikawa says, getting up from the chair and putting his hands under the book to take it from Koutarou. Oikawa's fingers cover Koutarou's in the motion and it takes Koutarou a moment to process why Oikawa's hands are there. Then, he carefully transfers the weight to Oikawa's arms.

"What do you even need it for?" Koutarou finally manages to ask him.

"A bet."

"A bet?" This time Koutarou is the one raising an eyebrow.

"A bet," Oikawa repeats and he tosses the book up a little to reposition it in his arms. "My roommate - ah that's Iwa-chan - and I had an argument about who has the heaviest study books.. I don't really know how we got to that but well, I've won now so it doesn't matter."

"Does this really count as study material?" Koutatou's more inclined to say it's a weight training prop from the gym. And his teachers in high school never let him read murder mystery fiction for literature classes either.

"I'm an English major," Oikawa explains as he walks through the swing door sideways, cursing when he hits the corner of the counter again. "Should've remembered to put my contacts in before I left without my glasses."

Koutarou makes quick work of assigning the book to Oikawa's student account and passes the plastic ID card back to Oikawa.

"Well, thank you for all the help." Oikawa winks as he returns the card to his pocket and picks the book up again. "I'll definitely be coming to the library more often now, after such great service, Tetsu-chan."

"Tetsu?" Koutarou looks down at the name tag he's wearing and hurries to correct Oikawa. The thought of him leaving with the wrong name in mind really doesn't feel right to him. "Ah no, this is not my name tag, I'm just filling in!"

Oikawa cheeks flush a little. "Well then who have I been flirting with all this time?"

Koutarou swallows and then grabs the block of sticky notes off the desk, scribbles his name and number on it and sticks it onto the top of Oikawa's book. Oikawa reads it quickly and then smiles at him again, cheeks still flushed and despite his dishevelled look, very, very handsome. "Well then, see you around, Kou-chan."

* * *

A week later, Koutarou is working his evening shift at the cafeteria when a much more put-together version of his library client saunters up to the counter, smile bright and with his hair styled so it doesn't fall into his face, Koutarou can see the sparkle in his eyes.

"Hey," Oikawa says, leaning over the countertop and pointing over his shoulder, gesturing at the burly guy behind him, "what's the spiciest thing you have around here?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this, I hope you enjoyed it too.
> 
> Please leave me a comment with your thoughts, if you want to! I adore getting them and they absolutely make my day.


End file.
